Cool Cars Engineering - Lowrider Business

By Chris Hayden, Photography by Chris Hayden

Lowrider, July 29, 2010

Cool Cars began in the early fall of 1994, after opening their flagship store deep in the heart of Louisville, Kentucky. Upon the grand opening of the location, the shop was an aftermarket auto haven, specializing in various products including window tint, luxury wheels, car stereos, alarms, accessories, and everything else under the sun. Initially, the shop did well, and for the first couple of years Cool Cars satisfied their local market's needs. Eventually, however, the request and demand for Lowrider products and installations increased, and Cool Cars needed to expand their horizons.

Cool Cars was first introduced to the Lowrider Movement back in 1998, when they began competing as a shop in the hydraulic competitions during the Lowrider shows. The shop team performed well with an '87 Cutlass named "El Sancho," and it did not take long before Cool Cars became a strong force in the Lowrider industry, thanks to many additionally impressive performances over the years.

The shop put in the necessary hours of preparation and fabrication it took to get their vehicles ready for the shows, and eventually, Cool Cars began product testing and designing parts based off of their own testing results. After countless hours of testing on their own vehicles, they were able to provide designs that would allow for easier installation and provide better quality parts for customer vehicles. As a result of this process, Cool Cars introduced CCE Hydraulics to the Lowrider marketplace.

CCE hydraulics (Cool Cars Engineering) took the Lowrider Tour by storm in the early 2000's, introducing a full fleet of cars to promote their line. "Whiplash" was an '89 Mazda street dancer, "El Sancho" was the '87 Cutlass radical dancer, "Gold Digger" was a '63 double-pumped wagon, and combined with a single-pump truck hopper, these cars made quite a team impact on the scene. Over all, the products performed well and Cool Cars' designs took many 1st place wins, setting quite a few world records in the process.

Cool Cars gained a reputation as being a one-stop Lowrider shop, where you could get the very best in parts and quality installations, from your basic 2-pump installs, to your fully-wrapped hoppers! Cool Cars also performed body drops, and even installed basic air-ride set ups. You wanted it? They installed it! However, in 2008, Cool Cars took a different approach to things. It was at this time that Cool Cars closed the install shop and turned it into a manufacturing facility, to allow for better quality control of their parts and full production of CCE Hydraulics. Now, about 80% of all products are made and assembled in-house. Things didn't stop there, either; CCE hydraulics also opened a distribution center in Nevada to better service their customers and to satisfy product demand on the west coast. Thanks to a close working relationship with Fed Ex, customers are now able to get product within 1-3 business days.